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Friday, 28 April 2017

Book Review: Obsession by Amanda Robson

One evening, a wife asks her husband a question: who else would you go for, if you could?

It is a simple question – a little game – that will destroy her life.

Carly and Rob are a perfect couple. They share happy lives with their children and their close friends Craig and Jenny. They’re lucky. But beneath the surface, no relationship is simple: can another woman’s husband and another man’s wife ever just be good friends?

Little by little, Carly’s question sends her life spiralling out of control, as she begins to doubt everything she thought was true. Who can she trust? The man she has promised to stick by forever, or the best friend she has known for years? And is Carly being entirely honest with either of them?

Obsession is a dark, twisting thriller about how quickly our lives can fall apart when we act on our desires.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher, Avon, for the ARC.

I read a lot of books - too many perhaps, when I should be writing my own. I've been lucky this year so far; most have been great, the occasional one was not, and then last night, one absolutely blew my socks off.

Obsession is compelling, horrifying, disturbing, gripping...

The story is told in turns by each of the four main characters, husband and wife Rob and Carly, and the other couple Jenni and Craig. Each of them is narrating the tale to one of the others, and it is thoroughly enthralling.

I don't want to give any more of the plot away; because I think each reader should be as shocked as I was. Never before have I been so betrayed by characters in a book. They play with my emotions - at first I detested the seemingly brash, selfish Carly, but later found myself wavering between sympathy and revulsion, an unsettling mixture felt for each of the characters as they seek to disarm and deceive us. I simply did not know who to trust.

The story gets bigger and more terrifying, the characters becoming more and more awful and their actions even worse. Honestly, this book wrong-footed me so many times, I had to read it in almost one sitting (I had to stop at 2am then carried on again at 8am!).

I've heard it said that for a book to be successful, you have to fall in love with at least one of the characters. Well, Obsession smashes the mould.

Obsession is published on Kindle on 4th May and in paperback on 1st June by Avon and you can pre-order either from Amazon or other retailers.